Ghost in this House
by thelostmeggie
Summary: Inara struggles to find happiness.
1. Author's Notes

**Disclaimer:** Inara and the entirety of the Firefly-verse belongs to Joss. FOX Broadcasting Company and Universal have some claim to them, too, since they're the ones that brought Firefly and Serenity to the public. I love writing about them, but I don't claim to have any ownership of the characters contained in the following fiction. I do, however, own the fiction and any use of plagiarism will endanger your life. The lyrics that precede the story are from Alison Krauss's "Ghost in this House", which is also where I got the title of this fic from.

**Author's Notes:** Written for the LiveJournal community 30shinyfics (prompt #30 - "ghost"). If you enjoy what you read: feel free to leave me a review or drop me a PM, but also feel free to check out my other fiction at http://xxwontsayaword. 


	2. Ghost in this House

_I'm just a ghost in this house  
I'm just a shadow upon these walls  
As quietly as a mouse, I haunt these halls  
I'm living proof of the damage heartbreak does_

The Maiden House was quiet and still. The lights were out and the moonlight filtered in through windows, giving the house an eerie beauty. Occasionally, an owl would hoot in the distance and the noise would echo down the halls until it was swallowed by the silence.

Inara was still awake. She found it increasingly difficult to drift off into sleep. She sat in front of her vanity, brushing her onyx locks and wondering why she felt the way she did. Perhaps it was loneliness, pure and simple. Her sisters here at the house believed that to be true and often said once Inara accepted this place as her home, she wouldn't long for Serenity anymore. Inara wasn't so sure it was as simple as that.

She was an apt teacher. The girls she taught adored her and cherished her opinion. It was an easy job for Inara. During the daylight hours when she had girls to instruct and chores to attend to (such as practicing her music and tending to the plants in the garden), she was content. She longed for nothing and took joy from the things she did. The trouble came during quiet reflection times. Meditation was torture for her now, when it had once been her refuge. Falling asleep without being exhausted was a battle, and these moments in the night made her think she was losing her mind.

She felt as though part of her soul was missing. She was living the life she always wanted to lead, but it seemed as though it'd come too late. Inara Serra was two women: the ambitious, optimistic newcomer and the world-weary woman who'd seen it all. This life she was leading now belonged to the first of those women, and Inara wasn't so sure that was her anymore. This life was the ghost of a former life. This life wasn't the one she wanted anymore.

Inara missed the sounds of Serenity's engine. She missed feeling the ship move beneath her feet. She missed hearing Kaylee's laugh echo through the hull. She missed Jayne and Wash bickering. She missed the looks Zoe would throw her way, their silent way of communicating. She missed the way Simon would look at Kaylee. She missed caring for River. But most of all, she missed Mal. There wasn't just one thing she could say she missed about him, and to list all the things she missed would take a lifetime. She just missed him.

She didn't just miss them, though. She felt lost without them. All of them. Somehow during the duration of her stay, she'd made them all into her family. She felt like she did when she was a school girl, leaving home for the first time. She didn't know if she'd be able to find her own way.

Inara was intelligent enough to recognize that she could survive this life. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She simply didn't want to. She longed to feel as though if something should happen to her, someone would come to her rescue. She'd never had to question that living on Serenity. Here, in this house, she doubted anyone would be courageous enough to do so. She didn't anticipate falling into a situation that would cause for such heroics, but one never did know.

She counted the brush strokes and lowered the brush after she hit one hundred, letting her eyes rake over her face in the mirror. She wished she could say she recognized her reflection. There were some vague similarities. Overall, this reflection simply looked like a ghost of her old one. It was washed out and pale, and completely devoid of the happiness that used to radiate from her.

"This is it," she spoke softly to her reflection, "You're who I am from now on. I can't go back."

Tears stung the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. A ghost had to be better than not living at all. Feeling whispers of anything was better than feeling nothing. She could live like this; she would have to live like this. And maybe, just maybe, someday she'd come to realize that this ghost had been reawakened into yet another woman. Maybe she would rise from the ashes of this life, just as she had in the last one. Maybe she didn't need Serenity after all.


End file.
